About the Session: How do we help children understand struggling with sadness, anxiety, or big feelings of their own?

Join author and mental health advocate Kendall Concini as she shares the personal story behind Cloudy Day Chronicles, a children’s picture book series inspired by her experiences with motherhood and mental health. Through Mom’s Cloud and the Beach Adventure and the upcoming Park Adventure, we’ll explore how storytelling, metaphors, and age-appropriate language can help families talk about difficult emotions without placing the responsibility of fixing them on children.

Designed for therapists, counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals, this webinar will explore how children’s literature can serve as a conversation starter for emotional literacy, family connection, and supporting children whose caregivers experience mental health challenges.

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Identify ways to support age-appropriate conversations about big feelings, mental health, and emotional well-being.
• Explore how storytelling and metaphors, such as the “cloud,” can help children recognize, name, and communicate difficult emotions.
• Discuss strategies for helping families acknowledge parental mental health challenges without placing emotional responsibility on children.
• Apply storytelling-based conversation prompts and activities to encourage emotional literacy, empathy, and connection within families.

About the Speaker: Kendall Concini-Moore is a mental health advocate, speaker, and children’s picture book author whose work centers on helping families talk openly about emotional heaviness, depression, and support systems in age-appropriate, approachable ways.

Her book, Mom’s Cloud and the Beach Adventure, was inspired by her own experience with postpartum depression and ongoing mental health conversations within parenting. Rather than using clinical language, the story introduces the idea of a “cloud” following Mom—a gentle metaphor children can understand while creating space for meaningful conversations with caregivers about big feelings, empathy, and support. Outside of her author life, Kendall ensures she is filling her days with laughter, curiosity, and the right amount of weirdness.